No choice but to consider DMP - help appreciated!

emsgirl

It is incredible the amount I've been refunded. It's also crazy as it shows just how much of your debt is actually interest - it's easy to see how debt can snowball due to this.

Thanks - I think I will self manage at the moment and if anything starts getting stressful or complicated I will go to stepchange.

Not entirely sure what's happening with my closed accounts i.e Halifax, MBNA and Admiral. I assume they will accept lower monthly payments and just report that to the credit reference agencies and then they said all negative entries will be removed once the balance is paid. I'll see if they request a normal monthly repayment this month. They're just not going to default but I guess as long as I've paid the balances before 6yrs it's still no worse than defaulting as the negative entries will get removed (i.e late or lower payments). I'm not too worried about getting reduced settlements on these as I feel it's fair enough that the interest has been removed and I'm only paying what I actually have spent.

I'm hopeful for good outcomes from the ombudsman so it will be easier to manage everything myself at least until I know exactly where I stand with everything.

Thanks again to all of you for your help - I have learnt so much on these forums and I can see how much you all contribute. You really should know you the impact you have - you have made a huge difference to so many lives!

Rob5342

There are two stages at the FOS, the first is an investigator and the second is an Ombudsman. If you don't agree with the investigator you can ask for the complaint to be looked at by an Ombudsman for a final decision. They told me that it was unlikely that the Ombudsman would decide any differently for my complaint but I asked for it to be escalated anyway and they found in my favour. 

emsgirl

Good to know - thanks for the info.

emsgirl

Hi all,

I've had a letter from Zopa saying my account has defaulted and giving a formal demand for full payment of the outstanding sums.

I am still waiting on the ombudsman decision regarding my affordability complaint for this loan.

Zopa have sent me an affordability assessment to see what I can afford to pay them. So I now have the following options:-

- I hold tight and ignore this for now, hoping that the decision comes through from the ombudsman 
- I fill out the affordability assessment and start making payments to Zopa

If I start payments will this make it less likely they will sell the loan on and so reduce my chances of making settlement offers via a debt collection company further down the line? If I ignore requests for payments will it make them more likely to go for a CCJ?

I'm not sure what's best to do at this point so any advice from you all would be much appreciated.

fatbelly

It's a good idea generally not to till in any forms they send you.

There's no harm waiting for the FOS decision and continuing to save in the meantime.

When you want to start making payments send them your own soa* showing why you are paying them what you are.

NEDCAB have template letters and calculators

* Obvs tweak in your favour. We said earlier that a long dmp with f&f to finish would work for you and you said stepchange had suggested 525 per month

emsgirl

fatbelly said:

It's a good idea generally not to till in any forms they send you.

There's no harm waiting for the FOS decision and continuing to save in the meantime.

When you want to start making payments send them your own soa* showing why you are paying them what you are.

NEDCAB have template letters and calculators

* Obvs tweak in your favour. We said earlier that a long dmp with f&f to finish would work for you and you said stepchange had suggested 525 per month

That’s great thanks.

I’ll hang on a bit longer and hopefully will get something back from the complaint so at least I’ll know where I stand with that as that may influence what I pay anyway.

Yes I was slightly worried filling in forms they send me may make it more confusing as it’s not then uniform between companies so that would make more sense to send them all the same SOA and then it’s based on my own workings as to what I can afford.

 Many thanks for your advice, much appreciated. 

emsgirl

Hi just a further update. 

The initial investigator at the FOS has strangely found in Zopa's favour. I have asked for it to be looked at by an ombudsman as I'm hopeful they will side with me eventually. The Zopa loan was the one I thought was most obviously unaffordable so it's a shame it's proving difficult to get sorted.

In good news my Virgin credit card affordability complaint has been upheld by the FOS investigator. So they have asked Virgin to refund all fees and interest plus 8% interest. This should be approximately £2750! Just waiting on Virgin's response now.

I haven't heard anything at all from Zopa since my default and I still haven't paid them anything. Do you think I should just wait it out and hope for a more positive result from the ombudsman? Or should I pay them something now the account is in default just to lower the risk of them taking any sort of legal action? I'm nervous of this loan as it has the highest amount outstanding so I wouldn't be able to pay it off quickly if needed as my emergency fund would be nowhere near covering it so I'm worried about any letter before action arriving.

Barclaycard have sold my debt to PRA so this is a whole new area for me to navigate. I have only had an initial welcome email and letter from PRA asking me to respond and sort out payments in the last 2 weeks, I've not yet responded to this. I was thinking of doing a CCA request as my Barclaycard account is pretty old so I'm hoping they won't be able to come up with a copy of the agreement. Is it worth asking for one straight away? Should I start paying them something in the meantime?

I have opened a complaint regarding the affordability of my Barclaycard with the FOS but they keep requesting a dated copy of the final response (the one I've sent them has a date on it so I'm really confused by this!) so I've kind of reached a stalemate on this one with arguing the affordability.

As always any help/advice from you guys is much appreciated!

13thlegion

If any debt is still with FOS do not pay. No point in acknowledging that it is ok (which paying does) when you are disputing it.

Rob5342

In most cases the ombudsman takes the same position as the investigator so I wouldn't get your hopes up, but they can reach a different decision so it's always worth pushing it through. Don't pay anything while it's being investigated, start making payments once that's complete. Legal action is nothing to be worried about really, if they get a CCJ against you then you'll just be ordered to pay what you can afford, so apart from a ccj on your credit record it's no differerent to just repaying what you can afford anyway. In most cases they will just be happy with whatever payments you offer, and you'll have the option of making a reduced settlement and asking for the CCA once it's been sold on too.

I don't think there is an easy answer with PRA, you don't want to be paying an unenforcable debt but the chance of them being able to find the CCA tends to diminish as time goes on and companies clear out their records. I think I would probably make minimal payments for a year and then ask for the CCA.It's a bit of a lottery though, they might not be able to produce it now, or they still might be able to in 5 years time.If you want to make a settlement offer then always ask for it though.

 

sourcrates

Quote "I haven't heard anything at all from Zopa since my default and I still haven't paid them anything. Do you think I should just wait it out and hope for a more positive result from the ombudsman? Or should I pay them something now the account is in default just to lower the risk of them taking any sort of legal action? I'm nervous of this loan as it has the highest amount outstanding so I wouldn't be able to pay it off quickly if needed as my emergency fund would be nowhere near covering it so I'm worried about any letter before action arriving".


CONC 7.14 FCA Handbook Disputed debt.

CONC 7.14.1

1. (1) 

   A firm must suspend any steps it takes or its agent takes in the recovery of a debt from a customer where the customer disputes the debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds.

Any debt that is subject to any kind of dispute, will have all further action suspended until such time that dispute gets resolved, this is standard industry practice under CONC guidelines.